Barfly, I love you

Barfly, I love you: "Prior to the release of Barfly in 1987, its writer - the late, great, Charles Bukowski - wrote the following 'letter from a fan' as a public show of support for the film's production. In it, he speaks highly of the filming process under Barbet Shroeder's direction; makes clear his admiration for Mickey Rourke, the 'damned good' actor who played his alter-ego, Henry Chinaski; and recalls a visit to the set by Roger Ebert, during which the critic apparently said, "I've never had such a good time".



Transcript follows. Incidentally, Ebert's write-up of said visit can be read here.



To read more letters by Bukowski, a superb book with which to begin is Screams from the Balcony.

Source

Transcript

BARFLY

Cannon Publicity Department



A LETTER FROM A FAN



I must say that in the production process of BARFLY, I had some fine luck. First off, the director, Barbet Shroeder, insisted that my contract contain a clause that no part of BARFLY, as I had written it, could be changed without my permission. This was adhered to faithfully. When I was not on the set, I was contacted via telephone for my o.k. on the smallest of changes, most often just a word here and there in the dialogue. I agreed to most minor changes and when I did not, things were left as I wished them. If this was not a heaven for the writer, then there will never be one.



The other part of my luck was the actor who played Henry Chinaski. Mickey Rourke stayed with the dialogue to the word and the sound intended. What surprised me was that he added another dimension to the character, in spirit. Mickey appeared to really love his role, and yet without exaggeration he added his own flavor, his zest, his madness, his gamble to Henry Chinaski without destroying the intent or the meaning of the character. To add spirit to spirit can be dangerous but not in the hands of a damned good actor. Without distorting, he added, and I was very pleased with the love and understanding he lent to the role of the BARFLY.



Also, the whole cast and crew seemed to feel so good, so up, during all the shooting. It could be felt at all times. More than a few onlookers spoke to me about this crazy high that seemed to exist. Roger Ebert came by one Friday night during a shoot. He stayed many hours. We watched the shooting, talked between takes. He said to me, 'I've never had such a good time.' It was in the air, it was everywhere and the delight and magic of it was caught, I felt, in and on the film itself.



BARFLY, I love you.



Charles Bukowski



(Signed)

"

Alec Baldwin Dresses as Jack Donaghy Every Night

Alec Baldwin Dresses as Jack Donaghy Every Night:



At a Zegna party, we asked the style icon for his wisdom on aging with style, dressing for work, stocking a wardrobe, and why he doesn't own a single pair of blue jeans.

Chris Adrian: “The Warm Fuzzies.”

One from the New Yorker's 20 under 40 fiction series.

Chris Adrian: “The Warm Fuzzies.”: "Her parents always gave the new kids a tambourine and stuck them back with Molly, because it was easy to play the tambourine, though there were intricacies to it that nobody else understood or appreciated, and because she was nice, though she was actually only about half as nice as . . ."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a piss stain

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a piss stain: "Early-1996, it was announced that the Sex Pistols were to be inducted into the U.S. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; a museum based in Cleveland, Ohio, which introduces several new acts to its ranks on an annual basis. Unfortunately for the Hall of Fame, the Sex Pistols responded to the news by way of the following letter (of sorts); a delightfully unsurprising rant, handwritten by John Lydon and posted to their website for maximum exposure.



Transcript follows.

Source

Transcript

Next to the SEX-PISTOLS rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain. Your museum. Urine in wine. Were not coming. Were not your monkey and so what? Fame at $25,000 if we paid for a table, or $15000 to squeak up in the gallery, goes to a non-profit organisation selling us a load of old famous. Congradulations. If you voted for us, hope you noted your reasons. Your anonymous as judges, but your still music industry people. Were not coming. Your not paying attention. Outside the shit-stem is a real SEX PISTOL

"

Palin Says Refudiate Appears in Fictionary

Palin Says Refudiate Appears in Fictionary: "

WASILLA (The Borowitz Report) – Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today defended her use of the word “refudiate,” telling her critics, “Look it up in the fictionary.”

While claiming that “refudiate” is a real word, she reserved her right to make up new words in the future.

“Everyone makes up words – Shakespeare, George W. Bush, Levi Johnston,” she said. “The only person I know who doesn’t do it is my husband Todd, who doesn’t speak.”

Gov. Palin also lashed out at those who criticized her use of the word “refudiate,” calling them “incohecent.”

In a related story, Gov. Palin would defeat President Barack Obama if she ran in 2012, according to a poll published in Mayan Prophecy Weekly. More here.

The Los Angeles Times says Andy Borowitz has “one of the funniest Twitter feeds around.” Follow Andy on Twitter here.

"

from Morning Coffee

Morning Coffee: "

Vintage Tokyo subway manners posters (yes)!

This is a literary website sometimes, so we should probably link to these newly redesigned F Scott Fitzgerald covers.

I’m not going to you, I think these urban-vertical-farming design ideas are pretty rad.

Movie City Indie has a sneak peek of next week’s New Yorker article on John Lurie (By the way, I love John Lurie).

Yes, we’ve heard about the insane way people have been quitting jobs recently too.

from New Yorker. Larry Doyle: Sleeper Camp.

Larry Doyle: Sleeper Camp.: "We are under an impression that C. views our ownership of the house as a deviation from the original purpose of our mission here. . . . From our perspective, purchase of the house was solely a natural progression of our prolonged stay here. It was a convenient way to solve the housing . . ."

from Letters of Note. "Fraternally, Brother Vonnegut"

Fraternally, Brother Vonnegut: "In 1989, eager to seek feedback from an established, highly influential author, and in an effort to simply reach out to a long-time inspiration, first-time novelist Mark Lindquist wrote to his idol, Kurt Vonnegut. Some time later a reply materialised in the form of the admirably gracious typewritten letter seen below, in which Vonnegut spoke of his inspirations in the literary world and warmly welcomed Lindquist into the 'family'; the missive illustrated by way of Vonnegut's self-portrait, drawn in his trademark style.



Transcript follows.

Source

Transcript

228 E 48 10017 June 4 89



Dear Mark Evans Lindquist -- I thank you for your very friendly and nourishing letter, undated and with the return address crossed out. Morgan Entrekin, when a mere teenager, not only read my books but was the editor of three of them, so he would be particularly adept at noticing kinship between your works and mine. The writer who most inspired me when I was a stripling is scarcely read at all any more. He was John Dos Passos. Writers of my generation used to say that the great American novel had in fact been written, which was U.S.A. Mailer's The Naked and The Dead reads and even looks like additional chapters of U.S.A. The other book which wowed me when I was really young has held up better than U.S.A., probably because it is not so burdened with historical particulars, is a minimalist work. It is Voltaire's Candide. I have not read your Sad Movies, and Dos Passos surely never read anything by me. About twenty new books a week arrive at this house, most of them no doubt marvelous. I simply can't keep up. The fact that you have completed a work of fiction of which you are proud, which you made as good as you could, makes you as close a blood relative as my brother Bernard. The best thing about our family, our profession, is that its members are not envious or competitive. I was with the great Nadine Gordimer recently, and a reporter encouraged us to speak badly of a writer who made one hell of a lot more money than we did, Stephen King. Gordimer and I defended him. We thought he was awfully damn good at what he did. Long ago, I knocked the schlock novelist Jacqueline Suzanne off the top of the Best Seller List where she had been for a year or more. She was a sweet, tough, utterly sincere lady, and, as I say, a blood relative. She sent me a note saying, 'As long as it had to be somebody, I'm glad it was you.' For what it is worth: It now seems morally important to me to do without minor characters in a story. Any character who appears, however briefly, deserves to have his or her life story fully respected and told.



Fraternally,



(Signed)



Brother Vonnegut

"

In Month Before Labor Day, Pointless ‘Filler’ Columns Abound

In Month Before Labor Day, Pointless ‘Filler’ Columns Abound: "

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – In a phenomenon that occurs every year in the month before Labor Day, national columnists across America file pointless, content-free “filler” columns, enabling the lazy scribes to hit the beach earlier, according to observers who have been following this trend.

The “filler” columns are churned out in a matter of minutes with no loftier goal than meeting a deadline and filling up space — meaning that columnists will often resort to using the same words or phrase again and again and again and again and again.

And rather than doing any original writing, the slothful columnists will rely on so-called “experts” to supply them with quotes to fill up space, experts say.

“They’ll often quote people you’ve never heard of,” says Harold Crimmins, an expert in the field of filler columns. “It’s pretty shameless.”

The typical “filler” column is often a reprint of a previously published column, but the writer will later plug in one cursory reference to current events, such as Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, to disguise this fact.

And in order to fill up space even faster, Crimmins says, the lazy beach-bound columnist will compose his summer “filler” columns with short paragraphs.

Many of these paragraphs will be as short as one sentence, he says.

“Or shorter,” he adds.

There are other telltale signs a reader can look for in order to determine whether a writer has, in fact, filed a so-called “filler” column, according to Crimmins.

One of these is a tendency to repeat information that the reader has already read earlier in the article, with columnists even stooping to using the same quote twice.

“They’ll often quote people you’ve never heard of,” Crimmins says.

Another tip-off is if the column ends abruptly.

Andy will be on Twitter for the month of August — follow his updates here.

"

Yankee Pot Roast - Erratic Services

I can make you rock hard!!! - m4m - 18 - (Hoboken)

Reply to: anon00101892-012@craigslist.org

Date: 2010-02-01, 6:34PM EDT

I have Cialis for sale, 10 tabs for $100 dollars. Lasts 36 hours. If you have not tried Lipitor (Atorvastatin) which inhibits HMG-CoA reductase, the rate-determining enzyme located—

Just lost my train of thought. I took one pill yesterday out of curiosity. Blacked out, five hours later I'm watching Cosby Show. That same night I had sex and found out I made it into Duke! I'm thinking of majoring in Pharmacology. Call me, I have a access to a hot tub until—

Just ate a handful of walnuts. What is this obsession with walnuts? I'm basically a FEMA supporter except I don't like your dog, if I were to meet it (i.e. if you were to come over). We could test the Lipitor. Avocado is the good fat, so just think about that.

I can't wait to meet you. No pic no reply. Must loves dogs and fix my chainsaw, time for that weeping willow to go.

Onion In Focus: Day Job Officially Becomes Job

HILLSBORO, OR—Another human dream was crushed by the uncompromising forces of reality Monday, when the restaurant day job of 29-year-old former aspiring cartoonist Mark Seversen officially became his actual job.

Onion - Former Prom King Now Living Anonymously Among Commoners

GRESHAM, OR—Towering feats of revelry and sexual conquest, hailed and exalted in their day by the former sovereign's underlings, have over the years vanished slowly into the mists of time, their fiery glow reduced to but a few dying embers in the pit.

Harper's Links

NYC condom contest finalists; profiles in college debt; meet the McDonald’s chef; how to succeed as an Ayn Rand character

Slate - Why there are so few great, inexpensive wines from California.

Bemoaning the dearth of good, inexpensive wines from California is like carping about the trivialization of politics or all the junk on television: It is such a self-evident point that it hardly bears repeating. But I'll go ahead and repeat it anyway, because this lacuna in California wine culture bothers me not only as an oenophile but as an American. In Europe, some of the most celebrated vintners put out modestly priced wines alongside their loftier offerings. Jean-Louis Chave's Hermitage (red or white—take your pick) sells for hundreds of dollars a bottle, but he also makes a delicious Côtes-du-Rhône that retails for about $18. Erni Loosen has an excellent $10 riesling. Aubert de Villaine, Christian Moueix, Dominique Lafon, and Alvaro Palacios all produce wines that are within reach of the budget-conscious. Nor is this trend confined to the Old World; David Powell, one of Australia's finest, puts out a quartet of sub-$20 wines. But among California's superstar vintners, there is almost no one making wine for the masses.

The Ricky Gervais Show: Finally Doing What Podcasts Cannot

The world's most popular Internet radio show returns in animated form on HBO, so you'll no longer be the weird guy laughing out loud on the street to his iPod"

What Babies Know and We Don't. By Michael Greenberg

Discussed: The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life. by Alison Gopnik

The most elusive period of our lives occurs from birth to about the age of five. Mysterious and otherworldly, infancy and early childhood are surrounded later in life by a curious amnesia, broken by flashes of memory that come upon us unbidden, for the most part, with no coherent or reliable context. With their sensorial, almost cellular evocations, these memories seem to reside more in the body than the mind; yet they are central to our sense of who we are to ourselves.

The Gambler. By Nathaniel Rich

Discussed: Robert Altman: The Oral Biography. by Mitchell Zuckoff

'I love him,' says Julianne Moore. 'And he means more than anything to me.' Keith Carradine speaks of a lifelong 'love affair with Robert Altman,' while Tom Skerritt 'just loved the guy from the first.' 'You'd always love him,' says Geraldine Chaplin; 'You've got to love him,' adds Mark Rydell. 'I loved Bob and...I'd do anything for Bob,' says Sally Kellerman, and it's true: for Brewster McCloud, he filmed her prancing naked in a public fountain in Houston during the morning commute.

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future. By Jason Epstein

The transition within the book publishing industry from physical inventory stored in a warehouse and trucked to retailers to digital files stored in cyberspace and delivered almost anywhere on earth as quickly and cheaply as e-mail is now underway and irreversible. This historic shift will radically transform worldwide book publishing, the cultures it affects and on which it depends. Meanwhile, for quite different reasons, the genteel book business that I joined more than a half-century ago is already on edge, suffering from a gambler's unbreakable addiction to risky, seasonal best sellers, many of which don't recoup their costs, and the simultaneous deterioration of backlist, the vital annuity on which book publishers had in better days relied for year-to-year stability through bad times and good. The crisis of confidence reflects these intersecting shocks, an overspecialized marketplace dominated by high-risk ephemera and a technological shift orders of magnitude greater than the momentous evolution from monkish scriptoria to movable type launched in Gutenberg's German city of Mainz six centuries ago.

Tiger’s Penis Issues Rebuttal

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL (The Borowitz Report) – Just minutes after Tiger Woods vowed to lead a life of decency and integrity, the golf legend’s penis issued a furious rebuttal.

“Let’s make one thing very clear,” Mr. Woods’ penis told a select group of reporters. “Tiger Woods does not speak for me.”

Mr. Woods’ penis sought to draw a clear distinction between his plans and those of the PGA champion, particularly concerning their futures on the golf tour.

“Tiger has said he is not returning to the tour,” Mr. Woods’ penis said. “I am here to say that Little Tiger is definitely putting it out there.”

Reaction to the statement by Mr. Woods’ penis was mixed.

“The world needs to forget about everything else and focus on the Tiger Woods scandal,” said the chairman of Toyota. More here.

Read Andy Borowitz’s live coverage of Tiger on Twitter

Saturday at Lee F*cking Marvin's, by Roger Ebert c. 1970

In his response to Chris Jones's new profile of him, Roger Ebert looks back fondly on this, "the best interview I ever wrote for Esquire" — a beer-addled, expletive-laden day with the actor.

The Fight over the Google of All Libraries: An (Updated) Wired.com FAQ

It's the beginning of the end-game for the The Google Books project -- an audacious attempt to create the most comprehensive library in the history of the world -- as the case moves again to a federal hearing in New York. The story is a complicated one, combining copyright law, anti-trust issues, plain old capitalist competition and the odd problem of orphan books, and Wired.com is here to help you sort it all out.

America's democracy: A study in paralysis.

from The Economist.

The fate of health-care reform is a test-case in how initiatives fail. Is it also a sign of much deeper trouble in America’s political system?

ACCORDING to Paul Krugman, the winner of a Nobel prize for economics and a columnist for the New York Times, modern America is much like 18th-century Poland. On his telling, Poland was rendered largely ungovernable by the parliament’s requirement for unanimity, and disappeared as a country for more than a century. James Fallows, after several years in China as a writer for the Atlantic Monthly, wrote on his return that he found in America a vital and self-renewing culture that attracts the world’s talent and “a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke”. Tom Friedman, another columnist for the New York Times, reported from the annual World Economic Forum in Davos last month that he had never before heard people abroad talking about “political instability” in America. But these days he did.

The growing idea among influential pundits that America is “ungovernable” is being driven in large part by Barack Obama’s failure so far to pass some of the main laws he wants to. And it is, indeed, a puzzle. Here, after all, is a president who only just over a year ago won a handsome mandate: 53% of the popular vote and big majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. He bounded into office with a mountainous agenda, including plans to overhaul America’s health-care system and cut its greenhouse emissions. He seemed until quite recently to be doing reasonably well. In a folksy December interview with Oprah Winfrey he awarded himself “a good, solid B-plus”. ...

The Ethics of Dogs

The play of canines might provide a glimpse at the roots of human morality.

By MARC BEKOFF and Jessica Pierce

The Real Timothy McSweeney Dies

An announcement from McSweeneys.net that the Quarterly Concern's namesake has died.

Also, a note from founder Dave Eggers about the real Timothy McSweeney.

Harper's Links

WorkingBusinessman’s Dead; why Charlie Brooker likes ebooks (they’re shameproof); the scientific reasons you should date an older woman (blowjobs); Troglodyte bats; excellent birds (watch them fly); Frowny faces at the clown memorial; “When an Intelligence Story Isn’t,” Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica; Palestinian sex tape; Guernica in Sarajevo; opinion: to fix the church, get rid of the churches